


it's just a deadbeat summer

by burningjackets



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, past!niam, spring break au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-22
Updated: 2012-10-22
Packaged: 2017-11-16 19:54:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/543234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burningjackets/pseuds/burningjackets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Zayn wakes up on a beach and is pretty sure men's bathrooms aren't supposed to have hula girl motifs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's just a deadbeat summer

**Author's Note:**

> hi  
> I haven't posted anything in a while, so this is crap I wrote in the beginning of summer  
> the title's from Deadbeat Summer by Neon Indian  
> have a good time

He woke up on a beach with sun dripping down his shoulders.

_Niall,_ he thought. He traced patterns in the sand around him, dozens of letters or words or pictures.

The sand was crusted into his skin, like a rind. It clung to him as he shifted, pain ringing out across his chest as the skin there tightened.

He stopped moving and pressed a hand to his chest, curious. It was red and puckered there, where the sun beat down on him for too long.

He sat up slowly, grimacing at the sand grinding against his skin, rubbing it more raw then it already was. The sea lapped lazily at his legs, and he looked up at the cloudless blue sky and thought, "Niall."

If you could paint the beach (sit down and paint the shine on every rock) you'd need a gold. Not the gold of gaudy plastic that stuck to sweaty necks and tangled on the floor. You'd need the gold of your grandmother's precious ring and the glint of gold leaf on a key (paint every strand of hair).

A blue as well, he thought. A deep blue, shipwrecks almost. (the doorways to the soul, don't you know that? you're the artist, zayn)

The sun was rising higher in the sky, and he tilted his face up against the cool sea breeze. 

"Niall," his mind spit again, and he nodded. (i know i know i know i know i know i know niall)

He stood up, the sand and salt clinging to his skin like sweat, and he wrestled the kinks from his back. It felt like popping every bone in his spine, bending past the comfort point  and his muscles jumped, but it felt good.

He looked down at his salt-soured body, his hips covered loosely with a bathing suit (maybe his maybe liams maybe harry's) and he walked.

He walked across the scorching sands, stones pushing up into the balls of his feet and he walked until his feet hit pavement and it was like hot coals but he still kept walking until someone waved him down.

"Zayn!" A brunet head bobbed by a bar at his right and a tanned hand waved, and his head turned automatically to look over. Louis was sitting with his feet on Harry's lap, and they had their lazy just-fucked-in-a-bathroom-stall smiles on, and Zayn screwed up his face and walked over, thinking "Drunk."

He sat down across from Louis, who smiled at him brightly over his sunglasses, and there was an awkward silence as Zayn picked up the drink menu and twisted it in his fingers.

"Where'd you go last night, mate?" Harry piped up, rubbing circles over Louis' ankle with spider fingers, and Zayn shook his head.

"I don't know," He murmured, startling himself with the hoarseness of his own voice. 

"Fucking cigarettes are going to kill you one day, Malik," Louis chastised, and Zayn snorted, still flipping through the laminated pages of the drink menu.

"What happened with Niall last night?" Harry said nonchalantly, and Zayn winced. "Niall," flew through his mind again, before he shook his head and cleared his throat.

"I don't remember," Zayn buried his head in the drink menu, and Louis watched him with a pity-laced gaze before he turned to Harry and said plainly, "Niall got smashed and told Zayn he loved him before grabbing Liam and makinh out with him. Zayn's being a big fucking baby about it," He raised his eyebrows and Zayn scowled.

"Nobody's seen Li-Li and Niall since!" Harry finished with eyes wide, and tilting back his chair and turned his face to the sun.

Zayn felt his heart drop like a stone in his chest, and he breathed out a long, continuous breath. "Where are they now?" He tried to ask calmly, the drinks on the sheet in front of him blurring slightly. Vision problems, he thought as his eyes began to water. Too long in the sun.

"They're coming now, like literally behind that palm tree. Niall!" Louis raised his arm and smiled just beyond Zayn's shoulder, and Zayn screwed his eyes shut. No.

"Hey, you lazy fucks," Niall's accent rolled over him and his shoulders tensed as Niall slid in next to Louis, and Liam next to Zayn.

Zayn could feel Liam's eyes on his neck, on the sand still crusted on his chest, and he looked at the drink choices with more intensity. 

"You're going to give yourself a migraine, Zayn," Niall chirped, and suddenly Zayn's margarita-stained shield was plucked away.

The sun made Niall's hair lighter, and it looked like gold (grandmother's ring) against his skin. His nose was red, halfway hidden by his sunglasses, and he was rocking the deep v, giving a little cream-coloured flash of chest.

He looked hot enough to lick ice cream off of, and Zayn snuck a glance at Liam to see if he was checking him out too. He was only met with kind, searching brown eyes, and he wanted to yell at those brown eyes to stop reading his mind, please, he wanted to enjoy his alcoholic drink of choice without pity, or whatever the fuck that was.

"A little birdy told me you got fucked last night, Liam," Harry said cheerfully, finally pushing Louis' leg off his lap and looking at Liam curiously. Zayn kept his eyes firmly on Liam, not letting them drift to Niall at all.

Liam immediately dropped Zayn's gaze and he babbled, looking at his hands. "Not really," He lied unconvincingly, and the waitress decided that was the time to ask for drinks.

They dropped the topic soon, because sometimes God was good to Zayn sometimes, and Zayn could sip his alcoholic drink of choice (something fruity and expensive) while watching the way Niall's mouth moved and the way his voice sounded like honey over rocks without disturbance.

"Zayn," Niall said suddenly, and Zayn snapped out of his revery, staring straight at Niall and saying "Yeah!" too loudly for the small talk in the restaurant. He coughed and said, "Yeah?" a little softer, and Niall jerked his head over to the bathrooms and Zayn swallowed and nodded. 

He ignored Louis' waggling eyebrows, and scooted out of his seat and followed Niall's perky ass to the men's bathroom.

The owner's of the bar decided that a surfing motif was the best way to go in men's bathroom design, and Zayn cringed at the half-naked hula girls papering the walls and the yellowed tiles and the coconut husk sinks and Niall's eyes.

"Niall," he began, and Niall shook his head, locking the straw door behind them.

"Let me tell you, okay?" He said, and Zayn nodded, hopping up on the blue-tiki patterned counter, waiting.

"I was drunk and Liam was... available," He said all in a rushed breath, and Zayn snorted.

"That's it? Thank you, Niall," He saluted and made a move to jump off the counter but Niall sighed and blocked him.

"I meant everything I said, okay? Liam was... there." Zayn looked at him, running the words over in his mind.

"You made out with Liam because you are in desperate, irrevocable love with me, yeah? I fucking bet," Zayn scoffed, and suddenly Niall was really close.

"Remember that time you beat up that guy for groping me at a bus stop?"

Zayn remembered, and it hadn't been a fair fight, with the other guy having a broken leg at all. It was almost second nature to send him flying to the floor, though. 

Zayn nodded, and Niall nodded like it meant something, his eyes wide.

They both stared at each other in silence before Zayn sighed and rubbed a hand through his salt-crusted hair.

"What is the point here, Niall?" He said, looking back up, and there was soft lips on his now and he made a surprised noise deep in his throat but his lips moved and Niall's lips were chapped but this was okay, so okay.

"The point is," Niall broke away, breathing heavily. "I want you to kiss me so hard I don't remember my own name."

"Done, done, _okay._ " Zayn chanted before snaking a hand over Niall's sun-warmed neck and pulling him closer, closer.

Niall tasted like sun and salt and the awful beer he'd been drinking, and Niall pulled him off the counter and slammed him against the half-naked hula girls on the wall, sliding a hand up his tank top, and Zayn could only think yesyesyes, please.

The sun dripped from around his shoulders and pooled at their feet, and Zayn tried to forget the Liam-shaped reminder outside, and Niall did his best to smile, and it felt so good,

and maybe he was almost in love with shipwrecks and gold rings and 

that wasn't something he could face right now, so he pressed harder into Niall's beer-soaked mouth and wished for eternity.


End file.
